


Fix You

by persephone20



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, TVD episode: 'The Departed'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:56:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happens post episode 'The Departed' 3X22 season finale and explores Elena's first days after waking up on that table. Very much influenced by the events in the third book of The Vampire Diaries: The Fury, once Elena becomes a vampire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix You

The car bumps off the side of the road. Elena can hear her own high pitch scream as though it's in her head. Then the sensation of falling. Falling, then plunging, then...

*

Damon's there. He's talking to her. Touching her, telling her he loves her, and that means that with her he can't be selfish. Elena doesn't know where all this is coming from. She tries to tell him that, but he's closer now. Her throat goes dry. He stares right into her eyes and Elena knows that there's some deeper meaning to what he's doing right now, but she just... can't quite... grasp it.

*

Matt won't wake up. Selfish doesn't matter anymore. She's let so many people die because of her. She's not going to let him die again. When Damon comes to the door of the car, ripping it away and trying to reach past Matt to her, Elena won't let him. Can't let him. If not for the water all around them, she'd remind him that he promised with her he can't be selfish.

*

She kissed him just one last time. It would have been too cruel if the passion of the kiss in the motel had have been their last kiss; their only _real_ kiss. She's glad that he didn't walk out of her room without turning back and taking her in a kiss one last time.

*

Drowning isn't so hard. Isn't that bad. It's like falling asleep. As she goes, she remembers the first time she met him. He was there for her, on the night of the lowest part of her life. He was there for her when things with Matt first went sour and somehow, he never really went away. 

His words whispered through her mind. _"I promise you, I will never leave you again."_

* * *

When she wakes up, she feels groggy. Her head is pounding and she feels hot all over. Too hot. Grimacing, she tries to lift a hand to her forehead. It feels heavy. Limp, and kind of not her own. 

"What?" she whispers. It comes out as more of a croak. 

She takes a deep breath in. Then another one. It takes more effort than she thinks it should do, but that's just another thing put to the back of her mind right now. 

Where is she...?

*

When she comes to again, she remembers a little more of what happened. The car went over the side of the bridge. Her mom, and her dad, were in that car with her. Somehow, without being told, she knows that they didn't make it out of that car.

"Mom!" she cries out. Her voice is still a croak, like she's been choked, or like she's swallowed too much of the swamp water under the Wickery Bridge. Tears fill her eyes; her whole face crumples. "Mom. Dad. No...."

Her hands move a little more freely this time, as she moves them in front of her face and begins to sob.

*

Voices wake her again. Elena is dimly aware that something terrible has happened. She must be in a hospital, but why is it so dark if she's in a hospital?

"You shouldn't be down here."

"I'm sorry, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Last I checked, neither one of us should be down here."

"I know." Regretful. Sorrowful. Elena's whole being feels clogged up with these unwelcome emotions. She can no longer go back to that peaceful, floating place. Here is too cold, too hard. She feels irritated, and has no idea why. "I couldn't leave her alone."

The sound of a chair scraping against concrete. "I know." A heavy sigh. "After what Meredith said..."

"She can't be a vampire. She didn't want that."

" _None_ of us wanted _any_ of this," the other voice snaps. Elena's eyes focus on _him_ and, just like that, her irritation fades away, like so much hot air. She even thinks she'd almost smile, if the muscles in her face felt like her own, and the rest of her didn't feel so strange and awkward.

"No! You weren't there. She's dead. Whatever Meredith did, or said she did, she's..."

 _He_ sees her first. His gaze darts her way and meets her open eyed stare. Under her gaze, his face softens. Elena could care less what the other one is doing. She has only eyes for Damon. Her savior. He saved her. 

"Damon..." she breathes.

The next parts are confusing. Both boys are rushing around and talking over each other. The other one touches her and a low growling noise starts up in the room. It takes them all a moment to realise that noise is coming from Elena. Elena is the last one to notice that and, by that point, both brothers are looking at her in horror. 

Elena drops her gaze. "I'm sorry," she says.

"No..." The other one... her brain supplies her slowly with a name... Stefan... is the first one to speak up again after a short pause. "No, you have nothing to be sorry about."

Elena tries to focus on him for a second, but there is nothing remotely interesting about him, nothing that will keep her interest. Her gaze slides back to Damon. Strangely, he has said absolutely nothing since he realised she was awake. 

"Damon...?" She reaches out one of her hands to him. Surely that will bring him out of his stupor.

So involved is she in his reactions, she barely recognises when Stefan recoils back in horror. The most she sees of that is Damon's gaze lifting from hers to meet his brother's over her head. Then he takes a step towards her, as though his body is moving without the rest of him directing it.

"How..." He is blinking a lot, and has to clear his throat before trying any further words. Elena wonders if the same malady that has afflicted her has effected him. "How are you feeling?" he asks her.

"Terrible," she answers honestly. But at least most of the croaking has left her voice by now. There seems only to be her and Damon in the room. The rest of the horrors seem almost swept away. But deep down, Elena knows that's not true. Her lower lip trembles and she thinks she remembers something. "I think... I think there was a... terrible accident."

Elena wishes that Damon's gaze would stop lifting to just above her head. There is no sound, no twitching movements, coming from behind her. Stefan might as well have left the hospital room. It strikes Elena again just how strange it is that they are in a hospital room that is so dimly lit, where she can't hear noises from the nurse's station, where no medical practitioners are rushing in and out to check her vital signs. Actually, it's strange that there appear to be no monitors hooked up to her showing any of her vital signs. 

"Elena." It's _him_ again and, for a moment, Elena can almost forget some of the unease that is threatening to rise up and suffocate her. Damon is leaning close to her now, kneeling and reaching out a hand towards her. Elena turns her head to the side so that the curve of her cheek settles into the palm of his hand. She thinks she hears a sort of choking noise from behind her, but she ignores it. "That's right, Elena. Stay with me." His eyes never leave her face, and Elena has never felt more safe. "What do you think you remember?"

Elena opens her mouth and starts to answer, because it is _him_ , and she wants to have all the answers for him. More, she wants them to be the right answers, exactly what he wants to hear from her. Then, before she can stop it, images start crowding the space behind her eyes, and she can't seem to get free of them. There is so much of death, and destruction, and hurt...

"I... can't!" she chokes out, and it's a sob, causing her to rise up and out of the safe hold that Damon had on her. She will never be safe again. Even _he_ can't keep her safe.

"Shhh!" Damon's voice has some urgency to it, but it pulls her back to him again. Elena blinks several times. Panic and flight are still foremost in her mind. If she could just get out of this strange hospital, she's sure that she could get some clarity, see clearly again.

"It's too soon." The unwelcome other one is behind her. Somehow, Elena can imagine him crossing his arms protectively over his chest. She doesn't want to look at him, doesn't want to see that evidence of knowing him so well. How can she know him like a friend? He was in so many of those images of death, and... and _hurt_.

"Damon," she whispers, as if whispering might make it so that the other one won't be able to hear her too. Damon's eyebrows lower over the bridge of his nose. He genuinely looks as though he's worried for her, as though he would do anything for her. Elena knows that those instincts are right. "Get me out of here. I don't want to be near... him." She winces as she says that. Only Damon can protect her from whatever retaliation Stefan will dish out now.

She tries to keep her eyes fixed shut, thereby missing the entire exchange between both Salvatore brothers. Missing the slack-faced shock that hits Damon first. The gut-wrenching hurt on Stefan's face that looks as though someone has punched him in the stomach. And then the blank-faced resolve that takes over Damon's expression, before he nods at his brother. Silent communication that they are more than well-versed in interpreting by now. _Make sure Elena's safe. At all costs._

"Of course, Elena. We'll go back... we'll go back to your place."

Elena dares open her eyes just a peek. Damon's gaze is intense upon her but, when he sees her looking at him again, he nods his head steadily, then reaches a hand out to take hers. "Do you think you can walk?"

What kind of a question is that? Of course she can walk! 

And then Elena moves to try to do exactly that. The floor rises up to meet her, but it is intercepted by Damon's quick reflexes. She is in his arms and her nose his pressed against his neck. Exactly where she most wants to be.

"I'll take her back to her house," Damon says, and Elena presses her face closer to his neck to try to ignore who it is that he's talking to. "Call you from there to let you know how she's doing. Disorientation is just a part of the... part of the transition, brother."

"I know it is." That voice sounds so alien. So cold. 

Obviously Damon hears some of that as well, for he answers with, "Don't lose hope yet."

And then they are moving. They are moving at faster speeds than Elena can ever remember moving, even in a car. She holds on tight to Damon, partially because she doesn't want to get lost on the way and partially because she doesn't know which thoughts are going to lead her thoughts down dark avenues. Thinking about cars is one way. That way leads to thoughts of darkness, darkness even darker than the hospital room, and not being able to breathe, and her parents. Oh god, her parents...

"Hey..." Damon is there again, right in front of her, kneeling there as he places her gently on a bed. Her bed, she realises, before scrunching her fingers deep into the duvet for the sense of familiarity. Damon's gaze flickers to that movement apprehensively, but then nothing more happens and Elena figures what she has done hasn't worried him after all. His eyes move back to her face, and she realises she's been crying when his thumb brushes over her damp cheeks. His eyes move back and forth over her face and Elena wants to cry again. She feels pathetic and weak, and added to that, she's not even sure what she wants to cry about. 

"Everything is so confusing," she says out loud, even as her mind thinks the words. "You're always there. When I was upset about Matt. There are other times too." Elena tries to grab onto the thoughts, but they just flit away, and dance just out of reach. She holds onto the thought that is most solid, the sound of his voice in her mind promising her something. "Just like you said you would be."

Somewhere along this diatribe of words, Damon's expression moves from perplexed, to worried, to shattered. Elena doesn't know what she's done wrong.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she wails. "I'm doing it all wrong!"

"Hey, Elena, no. You're not doing anything wrong. None of this is your fault," Damon reiterates for her again. 

This time, the words stick in her mind. "None of what?" Elena questions. "None of this feels quite real. Why haven't my parents come to see me yet? And Jenna? She was here for family night. And Matt... I know I was angry with him, but I'm worried about him too. Was he in the car as well? Is he alright?"

"He's alright." Damon exhales heavily. Reaching out, he draws her hands into his larger ones, and holds them tightly. Elena looks down at their hands interlinked. "Tell me, what exactly do you remember?"

"I remember the car crash." Keep looking at the hands interlinked. The other thoughts lead too much into the badness. Elena tries to move on quickly. "I remember having an argument with Matt." Looking up from their hands, Elena meets his eyes again. "And then you were there."

"If I had met you first..." Damon murmurs, a sad quirk to his lips.

"You said I wanted romance. Deep passion and excitement, and you..." Elena tries to see the quirk to his lips as an invitation to do the same. "You gave that to me, didn't you?"

He winces, then blinks, and when he looks at her again, the expression has gone away. "I've done my very best," he answers.

"And you have. You've given me everything that's good. All of my bright memories..." There's this strange expression in Damon's gaze now, like he's hanging on every single word that she's saying, like he'll hold them in a separate piece of his heart where it can never be taken away, or stolen, or forgotten. "You're in them, Damon. You're in them all." She breaks eye contact, looking in the direction of the dark outside of her bedroom window. "Everything else is confusing, and hurtful, and I don't understand it..."

Damon catches her quickly, bringing his palm gently to the side of her face and drawing her attention back to where he's kneeling in front of her. "You've been through a huge ordeal, Elena. The worst of your life. But I will help you through it. Every single moment." His hold on her fingers tightens. "I won't leave you to go through this alone."

Elena offers him a soft smile. "I know you won't," she says simply. Then she winces. "The light is really bright in here. I don't think I've fully recovered yet... Damon, would you turn off the light for me?"

He hesitates only a moment before going to do that very thing. A small amount of light filters up from the street, through Elena's bedroom window. While he's standing up to turn out the light, Elena settles herself into lying down on the bed. Damon looks at her for a moment, before moving back towards the bed again himself. His movements are slow and uncertain. 

Elena's eye lids flicker, but she focuses on him enough to say, "Damon? Won't you lie with me?"

*

Crippling pain wakes her up in the middle of the night. She's gasping and, for a moment, she doesn't know if this is still part of the dream she was having or if this is real life. If this is real life then she doesn't see the point of it if it is as horrible as nightmares.

Damon is by her side in an instant, a blur at first, then solid beside her, but Elena's confused. Her bedroom door is still open and the hall light is on beyond that. Why wasn't he still in the bed beside her?

"Elena, listen to me." 

Elena has to try hard to focus on his voice beyond the pain. When the next wave of it hits, she holds herself tightly but doesn't quite manage to bite down the scream of pain that ravages its way past her throat. 

Damon is looking towards the door even as Elena digs her finger nails into the flesh of his arm. He waves people in. At first, Elena only sees that it is that _other_ one that he has invited into her room. Into her house.

"Get him _away_ from me!" Her words come out as part growl and part scream. The boy who has come in beside Stefan looks shocked, and afraid, but he stands his ground. Stefan doesn't come any further into the room. He lingers just outside in the hall, but still visible from Elena's bed. As the wave of pain subsides, Elena comes to recognise the boy Stefan brought in with him. "J... Jeremy?"

"It's me, Elena." Her little brother's voice sounds husky, like he's been crying, and that sets Elena right off again. 

She starts sobbing, holding onto Damon's arm now for support, but not really seeing him. She sees Jeremy move closer to her, then stop as if he gets a signal from Damon behind her. 

"It's true, isn't it?" she whimpers, just as pain shoots through her again. She pants through it, crying out only once this time. It takes her less long to focus on Jeremy again. He looks frightened out of his mind, but he's staying put. He's so brave. She's never seen this side of him before, but somehow it seems familiar, like he always had it in him or something. For him, she tries to pull herself together, just a little bit. "Mom and Dad are... are dead."

She sees the shock cross Jeremy's face, and wonders if he knew about it or not. But surely they have to be dead. Or else why would Jeremy have been crying? Why wouldn't they have come to see her? She looks to Damon for confirmation, and then back to Jeremy. By now, he's schooled his expression again, and Elena wonders in confusion if she imagined the shock before.

"Yes, Elena. They're both dead."

"And I'm... I'm dying too, aren't I?" 

"You don't have to." 

From the shock that floods Jeremy and the _other_ one's faces, Elena could tell that Damon's words are not what either of the others expect. But she doesn't want to die. If Damon has a way of her not dying, well, she trusts him. She trusts him with everything.

"Tell me." She twists in his arms till she is looking at him again, at only him. Again, the world seems just to shrink to the two of them. She gazes into his eyes beseechingly. "Anything, I'll do it. Just tell me what I need to do."

Damon's silent for a long, long time. It seems as though the whole room is holding its collective breath. Elena never lets her eyes drift away from Damon's. After that long moment, he finally replies with, "Jeremy?"

Elena's brow furrows and she looks away from Damon. What does her brother have to do with this?

Apparently, Jeremy has the same thought. "Damon?" he says, without moving another step forward.

Damon's gaze flickers from Elena to Jeremy quickly. "If you don't want your sister to die," he says bitingly, "I would strongly advice you come over here."

"Damon," comes Stefan's voice warningly from the doorway. Elena ignores that.

"But won't that..." Jeremy's tongue darts out to lick his lips. He tries again after a quick look back at Stefan. "But won't that turn Elena into a..."

"Into someone who's not sick anymore. Yes, Jeremy." Damon's voice is clipped, cold. Elena worries for a minute about letting Jeremy so close to Damon, feels the irrational fear that Damon would somehow hurt her brother. She looks up at Damon again, and something of her fear must be written on her face because Damon's jaw clenches for a moment, then releases. When he looks at her brother again, his expression is slightly less unfriendly. "Jeremy, please. I'll make sure it's alright."

With that as assurance, Jeremy takes the remaining steps forward. He looks from Elena to Damon, then sticks out his arm. Damon maintains eye contact.

"Thank you," he says softly, before veins ripple down his features and he bites into Jeremy's wrist. "Drink," he then says to Elena, tilting her away from seeing what his face has become; tilting her so all she can see is the thick, warm blood seeping from Jeremy's wrist.

She does exactly what anybody in transition would do, exactly what Damon expects her to do. Jeremy winces the minute that Elena stops simply lapping up the blood and bites down into his wrist, worrying the skin so that it will give up more blood. Stefan doesn't even have a chance to move to the bed before the damage is done. Elena drinks hungrily, and for a long time. She growls like a savage animal when Damon pulls her away. 

"He's your brother," he tells her matter of factly. Then, when that has no obvious effect on her bloodlust, he shakes her to try to bring her attention back to him again. "He's your brother, Elena! Do you want to kill your brother?"

For a moment, it doesn't seem as though his words are getting through to her. Upon Elena's features are black veins that match Damon's own. Stefan is hovering nearby but, for once, Elena doesn't have an ill word to say to him. She doesn't acknowledge him at all. 

Damon tries it again, still holding onto her shoulders, his strength overriding her fledgling strength easily. "If you kill him," he says to her slowly, "you will regret it."

Elena growls again, her face screwing up into something that barely resembles humanity. Damon doesn't look away from her, doesn't lessen the pressure he's keeping on her shoulders just to make her stay put.

"Jeremy," he says grimly, directing the words over his shoulder. "Get out of here."

"NO!" she cries out, prompting Damon to thrust her down onto the bed and Jeremy to hurry out of the room. Stefan steps aside to let him pass, then stays at the edge of Elena's vision, ready to stand in as backup if need be.

"Yes, Elena." Damon still seems to have the upper hand. His expression is frozen into one of grim resolve. "You need to control this. This is the price of continuing to keep living. _Listen to me_."

Eventually, the sheer intensity of his words seem to work their way into her mind. Elena doesn't want to be fighting Damon. Fighting his brother, perhaps, but never Damon. The dark veins on her face slowly begin to fade back into Elena's human features. Damon breathes out a sigh of relief. 

"The pain," Elena murmurs, looking for all like a 18 year old human girl, lying back in her bed in the middle of the night. "It's... gone."

Damon's lips twist wryly and his brow furrows as he looks down on her. "Yeah. It has." Slowly, he lessens the pressure on her shoulders, until eventually he sits back, still ready to pounce on her if she looks about to move. 

"You should sleep, Elena," says Stefan, from his place in her room.

Just this once, Elena feels sated and tired enough to listen to him.

*

"She didn't want to become a vampire. _Dammit,_ Damon, you _knew_ that! And now look at her!"

The words are loud but, unlike before, Elena is not waking up in a dimly lit hospital room. As she begins to wake more thoroughly, her memory registers that place for what it really was; not a hospital room, but a morgue. 

"Is this coming from Saint Stefan, or is this because of the fact that she's finally chosen me?" The voice is Damon's, all filled with bitterness and a mere hint of restraint.

"This has nothing to do with that, and you know it. Don't you care about what she wanted at all?"

"What she wanted was taken out of her hands when Matt drove her off the side of the Wickery Bridge. I care about her screaming out in pain in the middle of the night and being about to stop it!"

Hearing Damon's words, it all starts coming back to her. Elena gasps aloud as the last moments before waking in the morgue come back to her. Rebecca, standing in the middle of the road just as Matt and her drove onto the bridge. Somehow, her memories of the accident with her parents and the more recent one with Matt got mixed and blurred in her head. They are starting to separate now. Things are becoming clearer, just like she knew they would as soon as she left the morgue.

"I heard it too, Damon. I heard the same thing you did, and I didn't do what you did."

"That's the difference between us, brother, isn't it? You didn't hold her as her whole body started to shudder with pain. I couldn't... I couldn't leave her to that fate. I know what that's like. How it never seems to end. I couldn't do that to her. Not without her knowing the other option."

"Oh, like the way I gave that option to you? Funny, I don't remember you being really appreciative about that."

"And maybe she won't be with me either." A sigh. "I had to give her the option."

"She's not in her right mind!"

"Did you want her to die?" The words are stark, shocking even Elena in her fragile mental state. The words, when they come a second time, are softer, more heartfelt and questioning. "Did you want her to die?" 

"Of course I don't want her to die!"

"Because that's what we were looking at, if we didn't let her drink." 

Drink. The final piece of the puzzle comes skating into her head. Jeremy...

She turns her head, remembering too late the window on that side of her bedroom. The curtains have already been drawn in preparation for this moment. Jeremy is sitting on her desk chair in front of them. He is worried, she can tell that immediately. She knows that the best way to reassure him will be to act just like she usually does with him.

"Jeremy, did I hurt you? Are you okay?"

It's not exactly the usual direction of questioning she would have taken, largely because she's never had to ask if she's hurt him before. Something flickers across his eyes for a second, then it's gone and Jeremy is shaking his head.

"No, Elena. It didn't hurt too much. Nothing that Damon and Stefan don't assure me won't heal in a day or so." Something about the way he says their names indicates that he doesn't realise how close they both still are. Like he can't hear them. Strange. Elena had thought they were talking in the hall just outside her room. But they must be further away if Jeremy can't hear them. He stands up, peering at her intently. "How are _you_ feeling?"

"Me?" Then Elena has to think about what all of this means in relation to her. She died, drowned under Wickery Bridge. Stefan didn't save her this time. It was _Stefan_ who came to save her under the bridge again--not Damon like her confused memory had tried to tell her--and Elena had insisted he save Matt instead. She must have had vampire blood in her system when she died, otherwise she wouldn't have come back after her body died. And then, to stop the pain, Damon had had her drink Jeremy's blood, completing the transition, and making her... "I'm a vampire."

The sound of the words out loud took all the wind out of her sails.

Jeremy's breath left his body in a loud whoosh. But maybe it wasn't that loud either. Maybe that was another thing to do with Elena's new vampire hearing. "Yeah," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I guess you are."

Elena pushes up from her bed, needing to do something. Needing to do something now. "I didn't want to be a vampire. Stefan knew... How did I have vampire blood in my system?" A memory of Damon flooding her mouth with his blood surfaced in her mind, and it took a moment to place that memory in time and discount it. Damon hadn't done this to her. He'd completed the transition to stop her pain only. The lesson he'd learned from forcing his blood on her last time had stayed with him. He hadn't tried it again. 

"Elena, stop!" 

At Jeremy's words, Elena realises she's been pacing the room, slowly picking up speed as the anxiety of her thoughts rises. She blinks, because there are Damon and Stefan, both suddenly standing in the room with them. 

She gazes at both Salvatore brothers--Stefan, whose beloved face she remembers with all the good now, as well as the bad, and Damon, whose face is as dear to her in completely different ways. She remembers now how many times Damon compelled her, remembers it clearly and without confusing it with other events in their shared timeline. 

"No," she says suddenly, the single word forced out of her without it meaning to. She doesn't need lessons on how to move quickly with her new vampire speed. She's seen Stefan and Damon, and even Caroline, do it numerous times. She barely composes the thought, 'move', before she is past them and down the stairs. 

She doesn't have a daylight ring. She doesn't want one. She's never wanted this. She can't say her goodbyes to any of them because they will try to stop her, would succeed in doing so. 

They don't catch her as she speeds through the town of Mystic Falls, too fast for anyone to see her, biting back sobs of renewed pain as the sun erode the hair from her head, the skin from her bones.


End file.
